I've bought a one-owner house in Italy - the value is about to exceed £400,000.

A woman who bought a "single euro" house in Italy has estimated its value at half a million pounds. Meredith Tabbone invested in a cheap property in the Italian countryside where her parents grew up and turned it into a home she believes is worth £400,000.

Meredith has renovated a property in her grandfathers village in Italy. She took the money to purchase the original £4,400 house and further invested in other properties. The house would become Meredith's country home in the Sicilian countryside. It all started when she heard that municipalities in the Sicilian countryside were raffling off abandoned houses at a starting price of one euro in an effort to regenerate the village.

A 43-year-old Chicago resident purchased an abandoned 1600s building, just "one large room" above the basement, in Sambuca di Sicilia. The building had no electricity or water and the roof was "thick with asbestos." Although offers on abandoned houses started at just one euro, Meredith paid £4,400 for the property. She then spent €750 (£661) to hire a team to safely demolish the roof.

Meredith also bought an adjacent empty house for an additional £27,000 and spent 46 months and £210,000 to combine them to create a four-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot country house.

Meredith said: "The house was in very poor condition, but in many ways it met my expectations and even exceeded them. It had so much charm!"

"It had such interesting architectural details - you could really feel the history through the walls. But it was a project with a lot of work to say the least."

"When we first saw the house - it was 750 square feet - it had no electricity, no running water, no windows. It was thick with asbestos."

Meredith is also converting other buildings in the city into small businesses and estimates that her country house will eventually be worth around £400,000.